INSTITUTE FACULTY

Project Co-Director:      
Laraine Anne Fletcher, Ph.D.
Chair, Anthroplogy, Adelphi University

Laraine Fletcher, Project Co-Director, received her doctorate in Anthropology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and is currently Full Professor of Anthropology at Adelphi University in Garden City, New York. Dr. Fletcher was project coordinator of the NEH “Maya World” Institute in 2000, and co-director six other subsequent NEH Institutes. With George Scheper, she is co-editor of Special Issues of the Community College Humanities Review on Maya Studies (Fall 2001 & 2003). She is fluent in Spanish and has a working knowledge of Yucatec Maya. For more than twenty years, Dr. Fletcher has worked in collaboration with archaeologists from Mexico and the United States undertaking archaeological investigations in two large and important Maya regional capitals of Mesoamerica: Cobá in Quintana Roo and Calakmul in Campeche. Her area of expertise is the analysis of settlement patterns of prehispanic sites and has pioneered the use of sophisticated computer modeling and graphic analyses to the field of Maya studies. In addition, she is concerned with theories concerning urbanism and state formation in Mesoamerican polities. Since 1985 she has also been associated with Centro de Investigaciones Históricas y Sociales of the Universidad Autónoma de Campeche, in Campeche, Mexico, and has presented papers at two of the Colloquia Maya which are held under the auspices of the research center. Her collaborative work at Cobá resulted in the publication of a major book, Cobá, A Classic Maya Metropolis, as well as numerous articles, including one in Science. Working on the Calakmul settlement pattern, Dr. Fletcher was the principal author of the monograph, Un análisis estadístico preliminar del patrón de asentamiento de Calakmul, and contributed to the recent jointly authored article "Calakmul: New data from an ancient Maya capital in Campeche, Mexico," which appeared in a 1995 issue of Latin American Antiquity. She presented a paper on the latest analysis at the annual meetings of the Society for American Archaeology at Nashville.
           
Dr. Fletcher has also conducted archaeological surveying, mapping and excavation projects in the north of Nicaragua. She was the recipient of both a National Geographic Society grant and a Fulbright Research Scholarship award to carry out this work in Central America. As the principal investigator and project director of the Reconaissance and Mapping Project in Region One in the department of Madriz and Esteli in Nicaragua, she coordinated a project which began in 1990 and continued with her participation until 1993. Her work in Nicaragua was undertaken with the cooperation and participation of the Museo Nacional de Nicaragua and was also partially funded by the Organization of American States. Several papers, publications and a monograph have resulted from this work. Dr. Fletcher was a participant in the 1995 NEH funded Summer Institute "Center and Periphery in New Spain," described above, which has led to on-going and fruitful collegial and academic relationships. In addition to her research, Dr. Fletcher teaches courses in areas of Mesoamerican archaeology, Native American studies, the ethnohistory of the Americas and contemporary Mexico, as well as courses on economic development and anthropology.

Project Co-Director:
George L. Scheper, Ph.D.
Interim Director, Odyssey Program, Advanced Academic Programs, Johns Hopkins University
Professor emeritus, Humanities, CCBC

George L. Scheper received his doctorate in English Literature from Princeton University. He is Interim director of the Odyssey Program and Faculty Associate for the Advanced Academic Programs of the Center for Liberal Arts at The Johns Hopkins University; Faculty Associate at New York University School of Continuing and Professional Studies; and Emeritus Professor and Coordinator of Humanities for adults at Community College of Baltimore County. His teaching focuses on cultural studies and religious studies, with a particular emphasis on indigenous cultures of the Americas. He has conducted numerous travel/study courses in Europe, Asia and Latin America.

He is recipient of the Excellence in Teaching Award from the Johns Hopkins University School of Professional studies (2004), and the Distinguished Humanities Educator award (2001) given by the Community College Humanities Association.  Dr. Scheper has been project co-director of numerous National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Institutes for college and university faculty, including on-site Institutes on “Andean Worlds” (2008, 2005); “Maya Worlds” (2006, 2002, 2000 and 1997); and “Mesoamerica and the Southwest” (2004, 1998 and 1995). He has also directed several research institutes for college faculty at the Library of Congress on the topic of “Cities and Public Spaces.”

Prof. Scheper is author of forthcoming articles on Catherine of Genoa and Hugh of St. Victor for the Encyclopedia of Christian Culture; articles for the Encyclopedia of Religion (2005) on “Charisma” and “Cursing; for the Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures  (2001) on "God"; "Jesus"; "Devil"; and "Evangelical Protestantism." Other publications include "Guadalupe: Image of Submission or Solidarity?" Religion and the Arts 3.3/4 (1999); and "'The Conquest of Mexico': Whose Story?" in the CCHA Humanities Review (2006) and earlier in Semiotics 1990. He is editor of several special issues of the Community College Humanities Review devoted to the encounter of cultures in the New World and to the culture of cities and public space. He is also author of a book on British detective writer Michael Innes (1986).

Scheper regularly gives papers and chairs panels at meetings of the Modern Language Association, the Community College Humanities Association, the American Historical Association, the Popular Culture Association, and other professional organizations, and he is a regular lecturer for the Maryland Council on the Humanities, and for Smithsonian Associates in Washington, D.C..

INSTITUTE VISITING FACULTY

John Pohl (Curator of the Arts of the Americas, the UCLA Institute Faculty: Fowler Museum) will conduct two seminars on Mixtec and Aztec migration narratives and co-lead a study visit the Museum of Anthropology and Teotihuacán.

Karl Taube (Anthropology, University of California at Riverside) will conduct seminars on Mesoamerican and Southwestern iconography, and lead a study visit the Museum of Anthropology and Teotihuacán.

Eloise Quiñones Keber (Art, Baruch College and the Graduate Center of CUNY) will conduct two seminars on Aztec ethnohistorical sources and on representations of Aztec ritual.

Alan Sandstrom (Anthropology emeritus, Indiana-Purdue University) will conduct two seminars on contemporary Nahua culture and religion.

Kelley Hays-Gilpin (Archaeology, Northern Arizona University and Research Associate, Museum of Northern Arizona) will conduct two seminars on Pueblo archaeology and co-escort field trips to the Hopi mesas with Ramson Lomatewama.

Stephen Lekson (Curator of Anthropology, Museum of Natural History, University of Colorado) will conduct two seminars on the archaeology and history of the Ancient Southwest.

F. Kent Reilly (University of Southwest Texas) will conduct a seminar on the continuities of Mesoamerican and Southwestern and Mississippian studies.

Ramón Gutiérrez (U.S. History, University of Chicago) will conduct four days of seminar on early Puebloan culture on the eve of the Spanish incursion and the dynamics of the Pueblo/Spanish cultural interaction; and on the motif of Aztlan in Chicano literature and art.

Fran Levine (Director, New Mexico History Museum, Santa Fe) will accompany the group as scholar/escort in the field trips to Pecos, Kuaua [Bernalillo], Acoma and Laguna Pueblos.

Donna Glowacki (Anthropology, University of Notre Dame) will accompany the group as scholar escort in the field experiences at Mesa Verde.